


Dogs of War

by Amuly



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Cigarettes, Flashbacks, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Smoking, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-08
Updated: 2011-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-04 00:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amuly/pseuds/Amuly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During their bromance tour, Charles and Erik visit the house of a young mutant. Unfortunately there is something in the house that scares Erik more than Shaw ever could.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dogs of War

  
 

 

Erik lit a cigarette as they stepped out of the cab and onto the suburban street. Identical little houses dotted the road, with identical little white picket fences and identically manicured lawns. Erik snorted. Children played in the streets, it being a Saturday, and parents mingled on those lovely front lawns. Erik took it all in with no small amount of bitterness.

“Come on.” Charles as at his elbow, squinting around the suburb in the bright sunlight. “The young lady's just in there.”

“Spying, are we?” Erik teased. Charles just looked sideways at him, the slightest bit irritated. Glancing around the cozy little neighborhood one more time, Erik took one more drag from his cigarette and flicked it to the ground. “Fine,” he grumbled. “Let's get this over with.”

As they walked up the step, dress shoes clacking on the cement, Erik shoved his hands in his pockets. He wasn't exactly _sulking_ , but he also didn't approve of this fool's errand. There was no way the teenage girl beyond the cheery blue door of this suburban house would be right for their program, mutant or not. Coming from such a place couldn't give the girl the desperation, the loneliness, the _hunger_ to learn what they needed her to learn – do what they needed her to do.

“I'm here, aren't I?”

Erik accepted Charles' reply to the thoughts he hadn't given voice to with the calm ease of someone who had grown used to this over the past several months on the road. “I suppose this is just one more way in which you can call yourself exceptional then, Charles.”

Erik tried not to smile, but when he caught Charles' broad grin out of the corner of his eye, he couldn't help but shake his head and chuckle quietly. “Alright,” he acquiesced as they came to a stop in front of the door. “What's the girl's name?”

“Elizabeth.” Reaching past Erik, Charles rang the door bell. They waited as the noise echoed through the house, followed by the sound of feet treading down stairs. “Elizabeth Anderson. She looked about sixteen, seventeen, from what I could see on Cerebro.”

Leaning against the wall of the house, Erik crossed his arms and looked at Charles. Even just mentioning “cerebro” seemed to exhaust him: the bags under his eyes seemed more pronounced, his shoulders seemed to slump forward. Erik frowned, but before he could berate Charles again for pushing himself too hard, the door clicked open.

“Hello?”

Charles was already smiling genially at whoever it was who had answered the door; it was a woman's voice, but before Erik pushed away from the wall he couldn't know if it was the mother, the girl they were looking for, or perhaps another female relative they didn't know about. “Good afternoon. We're looking for Ms. Elizabeth Anderson?” 

Casually Erik straightened up from the wall, moving to Charles' side. The person standing at the door was probably Elizabeth, he figured. She looked to be the right age. Before the girl could even respond, however, barking filled the air, and a blur of russet colored fur shot past her. 

“Oh, Sarah! Girl! Get back in the house!”

Erik couldn't hear anything the girl was saying. He couldn't really see, or hear, or move... he couldn't do much of anything, except feel a cold, paralyzing dread seize his entire body in the steely grip of panic. 

Next to him, Charles jerked roughly, eyes searching his face. “Erik, what- shit.”

Erik barely registered the girl going suddenly very still and silent in the doorway: eyes staring unblinkingly out the door, hand resting frozen on the frame. Charles was at his side, gripping Erik hard. His forehead was pressed against Erik's, breath brushing over his lips. “Erik, listen to me. Erik, my friend. I froze the dog. Erik. Please. Just move.”

Erik wasn't breathing. Some dim corner of his mind was telling him to breathe, but another louder, more primitive area of his mind was screaming at him to keep still, to stay silent, to not move until that dog had left him alone. If he wasn't moving, if he wasn't breathing, maybe the dog would pay him no mind. Maybe it wouldn't snarl and rip into his arm, tearing until Erik panicked and finally,  _blessedly_ managed to yank the metal choke chain with his mind, strangling the dog or snapping its neck. 

A flash of memory of metal and mud and fear gripped Erik's mind. Kill the dog. Choke it. Snap its neck. That's how he always won. That's how he always survived.

Erik's mind latched onto the dog's collar like a mousetrap, yanking the metal back tight. Only the little tags in the front were metal – the rest was some fibrous material. But that was okay, Erik could still do it. He could suffocate the dog if he just tugged hard enough on the little bits of metal, if he just kept the collar pressed tight against the animal's throat for long enough.

“Erik, please, _please_ , my friend: listen to me. You are safe. There are no threats around you. I am here: Charles Xavier, your friend. Please, Erik. Please release the dog.”

Erik's vision blurred as sweat dripped down into his eyes. His body was shaking now, limbs twitching and moving and  _screaming_ at him to run and hide. Just a few more seconds, though: just a few more seconds until the dog was dead, until he could go to sleep and escape from the pain and fear for a few blessed hours before it all started again, before they sicced the dogs on him again-

“I'm sorry, Erik.” _Go to sleep._

Erik blinked once, and didn't open his eyes.

**

He came to in their dingy hotel room on the outskirts of town, cool, wet cloth pressed to his forehead. His muscles felt liquefied, his limbs like overcooked sauerkraut. “Charles?”

The young man was at Erik's side in an instant, clutching a brandy glass in one hand. Erik found he didn't even care to find out where and how Charles managed to procure brandy and a glass on such short notice. Knowing Charles, he probably had an emergency kit of alcohol stashed in his luggage for their long trips. Erik reached for the glass, accepting it gratefully as Charles' fingertips brushed against his when Charles passed it off to him. He drained the glass in one swallow, relishing the rich burn of alcohol down his throat and into his stomach, warming him from the inside out.

“Thank you,” Erik croaked.

“Of course. And I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do something so... _invasive..._ without your permission.”

Setting the glass on the bedside table, Erik shook his head. The cool cloth slid down his forehead with the movement, sliding down to his pillow. Before it could even dampen the cheap material Charles was there, taking the cloth and carefully wiping Erik's face with it before taking a step back from the bed. “You had to,” Erik reassured him. “It was the right thing to do.”

Taking a proper look around the room, Erik realized that all their files were packed away, their research and notes carefully folded away and locked up in their briefcases. Only a change of clothes, nightshirts, and toiletries remained out. “Mission aborted, then?”

Charles rubbed his hands a little self-consciously as he edged back over to Erik's bed, sitting down next to Erik's knees. “Yes. Besides the rather inauspicious introduction,” Erik grimaced. Charles placed his hand on Erik's knee in silent reassurance. “You were right: she wasn't right for the program. She has a comfortable life, and no desire to leave it. And her power, from what I could see of it, is minor.”

Erik edged himself into a more upright position with his elbows and forearms. “What was it?”

The corner of Charles' mouth tilted upward into that wry little smile of his. “She could talk to dogs.”

Erik groaned, pressing the heel of his palm to his eye. “Nein.”

“Ja.” The amount of amusement Charles managed to squeeze into that one word had Erik chuckling, shoving his leg into Charles' side. Charles responded by trying to grab Erik's leg and hold it in place, which only served to prompt Erik to start a real wrestling match. When he crawled on top of Charles a minute later, pinning the smaller man beneath him and delighting in watching him squirm, Erik smiled again. 

“Thank you,” he said, putting as much honesty and gratitude into his voice as he could. 

Charles seemed to understand how he felt – of course he understood how Erik felt – because he just smiled softly and shrugged, like it was a non-issue. “Of course.”


End file.
